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“Learn to Hold Agro”

That is what I heard after an AN run. So there was this hunter who was managing pull off me quite a lot. The worst was where he pulled the final boss off me just as he was about to cast pound. So it would turn towards the hunter and cast it right into a melee DPS. Now for all you DPS out there that think that is the tanks fault think again. We only can do so much threat, there is a limit. Beyond that there is only skillful use of taunts and forced attacks. And beyond that there is nothing. So when I am doing 1500 dps (my under geared new bear, not Reversion) and you are doing 3600, over half of which is crits, then sooner or later you will pull off me. And if you do it right before he starts channeling which makes him ignore taunts (or at least not turn around until the channel is over) then there is not a darn thing I can do about it.
I called the guy on it at the end saying he should MD and FD more. His response? “I only MD, learn to hold agro”. Of course he dropped group right after so he did not have time to learn more about his stupidity. There are two problems with that statement. The first is that MDing once at the start of a fight is not ‘using MD’. That is just sort of a nod in the general direction of MD when it comes to boss fights. Second if the tank is holding agro almost all the time, even if there is something more about agro he needs to learn, he is getting the job done. Which means it is up to the DPS to do their part after that. What you have to do is manage your threat. Just throwing MD at the start of a fight is no more managing your threat then just simply owning a savings account is managing your money. It is a necessary start but nothing more. If you don’t know how to manage your own threat beyond that, then you need to go learn. Maybe I will do a post on that some time. But for HUNTERS it is so stupid simple that the very idea of some hunter not doing it and then blaming the tank really burns me.
Step one: Macro MD
Write a macro that says this: /cast [target=focus] Misdirection
With this all you have to do at the start of an instance is focus the tank. Next go download Omen and use it. When you get high on the threat list, use MD again.If you are even close to pulling off the tank hit your FD. That is it. A level 80 hunter should never be telling a tank to hold threat, even one with tissue and bubble wrap for gear. Other class have their own versions of that.

There are a lot of bad tanks out there. But if you are not an expert in your classes threat reduction skills and you seem to get more bad tanks than you think is possible… maybe the answer is not in the tanks. I had to instruct a mage the other day that his mirror images don’t do EXTRA threat. He was avoiding using them. They actually split up your threat and are therefore it is a really nice ‘dump’ skill. Every class has stuff like that but it seems most people would rather blame the tank than play their own class well. This is akin to ramming other cars on the road when they cut you off. It is a lot better to accept that other people do that and if you want lower repair bills you learn to use the brakes.

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I don’t know why, but it seems that more often than not Huntards are behind these types of agro pulling issues. Granted, almost any dps class can be blamed for doing it on occasion but from all the people I read it is almost always the huntard. It as if this class draws most of the jerks found in the game and gives them enough power to be a real pain in the fuzzy butt.
I’m an altoholic – so while my druid is my main focus, I also have a hunter that I play pretty regularly as well as several other dps classes. Hunters can be masters of massive damage output and I find myself with agro very often and I know it is my fault. I’ve pulled from tanks more times than I care to recall and have paid the price for it a time or two because I failed to MD or FD or just didn’t pay attention. Every time it has been MY fault, without a doubt.
If you are a responsible DPS, know your class and know your role, then you should also know that is your responsibilty, DUTY even, to manage your own agro. It is not the tanks responsibilty to continously save your behind so you can post recount at the end of the fight and be sitting happily at the top of the charts. Yah that top spot is really great as you look at from the floor where that mob you decided to pull off the tank came over and gave you a free facial with his foot. I could probably rant all day about jerktastic DPS… Dear Huntard, L2 MD/FD, take off aspect of stun and smack yourself if you have growl enabled on your pet while in a raid/dungeon. You are giving the few of us real hunters out here a very bad rep. Kthx.

It wasn’t until I became so over geared for current heroics that it dawned on me to regularly use soul shatter (on my lock) as a precaution. It is almost guaranteed that once I get my rotation going I’m going to pull off of almost any tank regardless of their gear, so now I just soul shatter once I start approaching 85-90% threat, instead of waiting till I’m at 110% and he’s coming straight for meh. Much less chaos that way, and like you said, it is the dps responsibility to manage their aggro, not the tanks.